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Coal Power Plants

Environmentalists in California are upset that Los Angeles will build a new 840-megawatt natural gas plant to replace a 1,800-megawatt coal plant. The coal plant has been crucial to the economic development of Millard County, Utah.

It took less than a year for the EPA to finalize the Affordable Clean Energy rule, which will allow older coal-burning plants to continue operating, in the Trump administration's most consequential environmental rollback accomplished to date.

The "War on Coal" is back, in the form of a new grassroots political campaign bankrolled by Bloomberg Philanthropies to decarbonize power generation by targeting existing coal power plants and halting the growth of natural gas replacements.

The report heralds increased shuttering of coal-burning powered plants due to cheaper alternatives. Almost three-quarters of coal-burning power plants today are more costly to operate than renewable facilities. In six years, it jumps to 86 percent.

The Energy Transition Act passed the New Mexico state House on March 12 and heads to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, the state's new Democratic governor who supports clean energy, but losing a coal plant early causes far-reaching economic impacts.

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a critical change in the cost-benefit analysis used in the mercury rule that applies to coal-fired power plants. By eliminating the principle of co-benefits, public health impacts would be severe.

The rise is attributed to Asian nations, particularly India and China, where coal-power plants are newer than in the West. It shows a growing disconnect between energy and climate goals, warned the International Energy Agency.

The breach of the coal ash landfill by a former coal-burning power plant in Wilmington, North Carolina serves as a reminder that even after coal plants are shuttered, the by-products of the world's most polluting fossil fuel can still cause harm.

The EPA intends to review the rulemaking process behind the mercury rule, the subject of a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 2015, to place more value on a rule's compliance cost to industry and less to its beneficial impact on human health.

At the center of the EPA's newly proposed Affordable Clean Energy rule is doing away with a permitting process known as New Source Review that requires coal power plants to add scrubbers and other expensive pollution control equipment when upgraded.

On Tuesday, EPA released its new rule to regulate emissions from existing power plants, essentially leaving it to the states to determine appropriate emissions levels rather than setting actual standards each state has to meet like the current rule.

Last month the Trump administration directed Energy Secretary Rick Perry to require grid operators to purchase power from aging coal and nuclear power plants, enabling them to keep operating as a matter of "national security." Regulators disagree.

The president hopes to revitalize the nation's sagging coal industry by forcing utilities to purchase power from aging coal and nuclear power plants in the name of national defense. The news is already paying dividends for coal companies.

Apparently Michigan's largest electricity supplier did not receive the Trump memo that the Clean Power Plan will be rolled back as they are proceeding on a plan that will achieve even higher carbon emission reductions.

The West's largest coal power plant and two Ohio coal plants will be closing, and the coal mines that supply them may shutter as well. The Arizona utility "is tired of overpaying for power," words that surely the president should understand.

Two environmental groups are suing the nation's largest public power utility for contaminating drinking water through prolonged leaks from coal ash ponds at TVA's coal-burning Gallatin Fossil Plant into the Cumberland River and ground water.

The cuts mean that China is on target to meet its coal power generation limit for year 2020. But even with the cancellations, China will have surplus coal power resulting in underutilization of renewable power due to preference for coal by utilities.

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